Historical Significance

The architectural history of Morningside Heights is unique among New York neighborhoods because of the distinctive circumstances of its development. Though home to a few scattered mansions, large sections of the Heights remained undeveloped until 1816 when the New York Society Hospital relocated its Bloomingdale Insane Asylum from its overcrowded downtown quarters to spacious new ones, sited where its patients could benefit from salubrious river breezes, walks, and gardens. The asylum remained the solitary institutional occupant of the Heights until 1837 when the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum obtained some of their land.

These two institutions dominated the Heights until the New Croton Aqueduct was constructed, beginning about 1870, but not opening until 1890. Before then, however, plans were being made for the district. The illustrious landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was commissioned by the City to design two parks, which now constitute the eastern and western boundaries of the neighborhood. Morningside Park was so named by Olmsted, due to the east facing precipitous rock formation forming the base of the plateau that is the Heights. Eventually, the name was attached to the entire neighborhood.

The next wave of institutions came in the 1880s and 90s, after construction had begun on the extension of the IRT subway line, but before its opening in 1904, which ensured the future residential development of the Heights. In 1887, the Orphanage sold its land to the Episcopal Church for the construction of its Cathedral of St John the Divine. In 1891, the Asylum sold land to Columbia College. When the Asylum moved to White Plains in 1894, construction in the Heights could begin. The College and Cathedral were joined in short order by a remarkable assemblage of institutions addressing the needs of the body, the mind, and the soul. Both Saint Luke’s Hospital and Teachers College purchased land from the Asylum in 1892. They were joined by Barnard College for Women, Horace Mann School, Jewish Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, and Juilliard School of Music (whose buildings became the eventual home of the Manhattan School of Music), and lastly, Riverside Church, in 1927.

Most of Morningside Heights was developed in a concentrated burst of growth between 1900 and 1915, galvanized by the advent of the IRT subway line. This compressed timeline fostered a variety of architectural styles and social and economic distinctions within a consistent physical framework. By WWI, Morningside Heights had emerged as New York City’s first middle-class apartment house neighborhood. Upper middle-class families settled into architecturally impressive apartment buildings along Riverside Drive, Cathedral Parkway, Broadway and Claremont Avenue. Less prosperous middle-class households moved into more modest but comfortable six to eight story buildings on the side streets and Morningside Drive. Apartment buildings for lower middle-class families appeared along Amsterdam Avenue and some side streets. Clusters of single-family row houses, which have since been broken up into apartments, were built on side streets.

The last stage of the Heights’ development occurred in the 1950s, after land was “cleared” by urban renewal. Grant Houses, named forGeneral Ulysses S. Grant whose monumental tomb dominates the northwestern edge of the neighborhood, consists of nine buildings, 13 and 21-stories tall with 1,940 apartments housing an estimated 4,519 residents. Completed in 1957, the buildings are on a site bordered by West 123rd and West 125th Streets, Morningside Avenue and Broadway. Opening the same year as Grant Houses, Morningside Gardens is a private housing cooperative of six buildings of 21 stories each for a total of 980 apartments. The complex was constructed for the middle class, employing the then current concept of towers in the park, and using public funds for construction.

With its multiple institutions and its elevated location on a narrow rocky plateau of Manhattan schist extending about 2000 feet between the cliffs of what are now Riverside and Morningside Parks, Morningside Heights has earned its moniker as the Acropolis of America. But it remains today essentially a residential neighborhood interwoven with institutions that continue to make significant contributions to the nation’s intellectual, religious, scientific and artistic life.

CHRONOLOGY HIGHLIGHTS

1821 Bloomingdale Insane Asylum opened in MH

1843 Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum opened in MH

1870 113th St Gatehouse of Croton Aqueduct constructed

First use of term Morning Side

1873 Olmsted commissioned to design both Riverside and Morningside Parks and

Cathedral incorporated

1889 Competition for design of cathedral

1892 Cornerstone of Cathedral laid

Columbia purchases portion of Bloomingdale Insane Asylum

St Luke’s purchases land; Ernest Flagg wins competition

Teachers College buys land; William Potter appointed architect

1893 McKim Mead and White appointed architects for Columbia

1894: MMW submit plans

Main Hall and Macy hall completed at Teachers College

Construction begins on first group of speculative row houses

1895 Barnard College purchases land on MH; Charles Rich appointed architect